gold pre-dominated, but there were
foreign attaches in uniforms of pale blue and silver, and other
unfamiliar colours, eastern robes and dresses encrusted with jewels or
richly embroidered in silks. It was gorgeous, a scene from fairyland.

There was a sudden ebbing of the tide of chatter. The band in the
gallery began to play "God save the King." Doors were thrown open at the
end of the great room, and the royal party came in slowly, passed down
the open space on the red carpet between the lines of bowing and
curtseying guests, and took their places on the dais. Cicely gazed her
fill at them. They were just as she had seen them a hundred times in
pictures in the illustrated papers, but more royal, and yet, more human.

They danced their opening quadrille, and after that every one could
dance. But of all the people there Cicely knew no one who would be
likely to dance with her. She sat by her mother on one of the raised
settees that ran in four rows the length of the room. The Squire had
found friends and was talking to them elsewhere. Her brother Dick, who
she knew was to have been there, she had not yet seen. Everything
depended upon him. Surely, people did not come casually late to a Court
Ball! If something had prevented his coming at all, it seemed to her
that she would have to sit there all the evening.

Her eyes brightened. There was Dick making his way towards them. He
looked very smart in his guardsman's uniform, and very much at home with
himself, as if the King's ball-room was no more to him than any other
ball-room. He was always provokingly leisurely in his movements, and
even now he stopped twice to talk to people whom he knew, and stood with
them each time as if he would stay there for ever. Really, Dick could be
almost as provoking as the Squire, where their womenfolk were concerned.

But at last he came, smiling very pleasantly. "Hullo, mother!" he said.
"Hullo, Siskin! Now you've seen the Queen in her parlour, eh? Well, how
do you like yourself?"

He was a good-looking fellow, Dick, with his well-shaped, closely
cropped head, his well-trained moustache, his broad, straight shoulders
and lean waist and hips. He was over thirty, but showed few signs as yet
of the passing of youth. It was quite plain by the way he looked at her
that he was fond of his sister. She was nearly ten years younger than he
and still a child to him, to be patronised and petted, if she was taken
notice of at all. He didn't ta